@ zumzum, it's about marketing. Name recognition is a must. Americans have to be able to easy say and spell her name, when looking her up. Bia is too short and some people might not realize she's a female.

Figueiredo would be a bit hard for the casual American fan to spell when looking her up online. Beatriz is pretty straight forward.

Danica Patrick is married. Her last name should have changed. But then she could loose some recognition, so she kept her maiden name.

It's going to be very interesting to see how qualifying goes at Indy. The Lotus powered cars will be hopelessly slow. I'd love to see a turbo boost increase at Indy and for the remaining schedule, but that probably won't happen till next season. The mfg's don't want their new power plants blowing up in large quantities.

The Indy 500 has an element of risk, but so does any motor race. The participants know this before undertaking it. They aren't forced to compete.

Oval racing has been held at the Speedway for a century now. The Indy 500 is quite simply the biggest race in the world. You might want to watch it on the road course, but nobody else would. Certainly very few of the huge crowds who attend every year.

And BTW the field is 33 cars as per tradition. And the Speedway is a 9 degree banking, which is hardly the same as Talladega or the like!!

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